Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Yang, Dandan
• Zhang, Mao
• Su, Chang
• Dong, Bin
• Lu, Yang

Titel

Candida albicans exploits N-acetylglucosamine as a gut signal to establish the balance between commensalism and pathogenesis

Ist Teil von

• Nature communications, 2023-06, Vol.14 (1), p.3796-3796, Article 3796

Ort / Verlag

England: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Candida albicans is a benign member of gut microbiota, but also causes life-threatening disseminated infections, suggesting that this fungus commensalism has evolved with retention of virulence traits. Here we reveal that N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) enables C. albicans to balance between commensalism and pathogenesis. Although GlcNAc catabolism is beneficial for commensal growth of C. albicans, deleting GlcNAc sensor-transducer Ngs1 confers enhanced fitness, indicating that GlcNAc signaling is detrimental to commensalism. Interestingly, addition of GlcNAc attenuates commensal fitness of gut-evolved C. albicans but retains its disease-causing potential. We further demonstrate that GlcNAc is a major inducer of hypha-associated transcription in the gut, which represents the key determinant for commensal-pathogenic equilibrium. In addition to yeast-to-hypha morphogenesis, we also identify other factors, including Sod5 and Ofi1, that contribute to the balance. Thus, C. albicans uses GlcNAc to build up a tradeoff between fungal programs supporting commensalism and virulence, which may explain its success as a commensal and pathogen.